Cary Clack: Bexar County grieves fallen hero

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June 1, 2011
: Updated: June 2, 2011 6:19am

The death of a law enforcement officer in the line of duty makes a community pause to mourn and be reminded of the inherent danger of the job.

In March this city grieved when a young San Antonio policewoman, Stephanie Brown, was killed by a drunk driver on the wrong side of the freeway.

When an officer is slain, his or her daily proximity to death while protecting the citizenry is brought brutally home. This past February was the 10th anniversary of the murder of SAPD officer John Anthony "Rocky" Riojas, shot while trying to apprehend a suspect. His funeral procession from St. John Berchmans Catholic Church to San Fernando Cemetery was as long as any San Antonio has seen in years.

This community is now in one of those mournful and reflective pauses in the aftermath of the slaying of Bexar County sheriff's Sgt. Kenneth Gary Vann. Early Saturday morning, the 48-year old Vann, who'd been with the department 24 years, was sitting at a red light in his marked patrol car on Rigsby Avenue and Loop 410 when a small white car pulled up alongside him and someone inside unleashed a barrage of shots from an automatic weapon.

It happened so fast that Vann was unable to do anything to protect himself or signal for help.

Such a flagrant assault upon a law enforcement officer is also an assault upon the citizens he represents and protects. But the manner in which Vann was killed was more blatant and cavalier than usual.

Drive-by shootings have been a scourge in this city for about as long as Vann was in the sheriff's department. Too many of us know what it's like to be sitting on a porch at night when a car slowly comes down the street. Just to be careful, we retreat to the shadows or go inside.

Too many of us have sat at red lights and wondered — just wondered — about the vehicle that has pulled up alongside us.

And too many of us have been victims of shootings that were either random or directed at the wrong people.

What's especially unsettling about Vann's killing was that he was in a clearly marked car. Whoever took aim at him knew he was a sheriff's deputy — and fired anyway.

It wasn't simply an assault; it was an assassination.

I asked Capt. Kenneth Bilhartz, who served in the sheriff's department for 41 years before retiring in 2003, if he could recall a similar case in which an officer was killed for no apparent reason other than being an officer.

But Bilhartz can't recall anything quite like what happened to Vann. He knew Vann and his wife and calls his slaying "shocking."

The attack on Vann, although probably not as extensively planned, calls to mind the 1999 ambush in Atascosa County, when two young men lured two Atascosa deputies and a Department of Public Safety trooper to a mobile home where they shot and killed them.

If what happened to Vann can happen to a law enforcement officer, it can happen to anyone. That's an understandable fear.

But it did happen to Kenneth Gary Vann, and it's time for the community to put its arms around his family while hoping that soon, handcuffs will be put around the wrists of those responsible for so much grief.